The problem I've heard of with castor oil (besides making you miserable
and not always working) is that it can cause the baby to pass meconium
in the uterus because the castor oil causes a relaxation of sphincters.

Castor oil, although used a great deal in the past, is no longer advised
as its effects on the baby can be similar to its effects on mom, i.e.,
it stimulates movement of the bowels, which can lead in babies to meconium
in the amniotic fluid. If you think bowel stimulation will help, try an
enema instead.

I've also heard that it is believed to be associated with a higher risk
of the baby passing meconium before or during the birth.

I have never associated castor oil with meconium, and I don't understand
the possible relationship that some people think it has...can anyone explain?
When I worked in TX, the law mandated anyone over 42 weeks had to deliver
in a hospital, so the birth center castor oiled a LOT...NEVER saw an increase
in mec with those ladies.

It doesn't pass into the baby's blood stream, so should not cause meconium.

I think when we do see meconium it may be because the mom is overdue
in the first place, and have nothing to do with the castor oil. Does that
make sense??? Especially since we wouldn't advise castor oil until postdates???

Makes more sense than anything else. Castor oil works by irritating
the digestive system which irritates the uterus, and by delivering prostaglandins
to the woman's body, presumably through the digestive tract. There is no
way this would pass through to the baby's digestive tract.

I guess I have to put my 2 cents in on this. I have used castor oil
lots and work with a group that will take it as matter of course, without
my knowledge. I have never seen meconium with its use. I have done over
200 births with these people and have never had meconium at all. That is
pretty amazing, isn't it, but true.

We use castor oil in our practice for ladies who already have a ripe
cervix, and have had excellent luck with it causing labor; no evidence
of increased mec.

I am very interested in what are the physiological mechanisms that could
possibly cause the necessary substances to pass to the baby and cause her
to pass meconium intrauterinely. Not only have I ever read any evidence
to this effect, I have never, before this forum, heard of the connection.

This discussion of the use of castor oil made me delve for a dimly remembered
Midirs article which examined research on the subject (Dec. 1994- if anyone
else wants a read) to try and clarify these meconium muddied waters...

It discusses a terrible (for the participants)sounding study in which
women between 38 and 41 weeks were given various cocktails of hot baths,
castor oil and enemas and uterine activity was monitored. Castor oil increased
'activity' by 186% apparently but it wasn't clear from the study whether
this meant labour (I would have thought all the running to and from the
lavatory would have made as much of a difference) or what the cervical
condition was when the castor oil was used.

Another retrospective study compared two groups of low risk women with
pre labour rupture of membranes. One lot got 50mls of oil four hours after
admission (does this mean four hours after rupture?- sounds pretty arbitrary).
None of the group had meconium stained liquor following ingestion, but
they all developed diarrhea. Significantly more laboured spontaneously
in the oily group than the non-oiled.

Finally one prospective study looked at 498 'high risk' women and found
a higher incidence of meconium stained liquor in those who had self administered
castor oil than those who had used enemas or laxatives.

The authors of the review conclude:

Castor oil does appear to stimulate uterine activity although
the mechanism remains unclear. No healthcare professional would consider
administering an unknown quantity of prostaglandins or not monitoring mother
or fetus after attempting to stimulate labour. Yet this is.. what occurs
when women are advised to take castor oil. Uncontrolled uterine activity
can occur... Hyperstimulation can lead to fetal distress and the passage
of meconium which increases the risk of intervention

The article also highlights what different dosages women are advised to
take and I have noticed this myself when colleagues have suggested the
stuff.

Didn't the article first appear in "Modern Midwife"? Anyway, I've read
the article and all it says to me is to examine the quality of research
carefully before coming to conclusions.

The study which claimed a correlation between mec and castor oil was
conducted by interviewing women in labour about self-medication before
rupturing their membranes. Interviews are notoriously fraught with problems,
one of them being that people tend to tell interviewers what they think
they want to hear (or not hear). Also the numbers in the study were really
not all that large, nor do we know anything about quantities etc. etc.
etc. Finally, correlation or association does not mean cause.

No good research has, to date, been done, and it's something that I
would love to see done (actually wrote a proposal for the study for a research
methods course I did in midwifery school). It certainly used to be a tried
and true method of induction in the pre-oxytocin days when my mom was a
labour and delivery nurse. She took it to have me and I took it to avoid
an induction for my second (worked too, and there was no mec).

We use it a fair amount in the practice I am in. If taken properly,
it doesn't cause the "horrible" symptoms that Margie describes. We have
women take 60 ml, mixed with 60 ml OJ and a tsp of baking soda. They mix
the stuff over the sink (because it foams once the baking soda goes in,
which emulsifies the oil), and slurp it down fast with a big-bore straw,
bypassing the taste buds. They then nibble on a cracker or dry toast, which
seems to help settle any castor oil "burps" afterwards.

Usually, we notice that women will start expelling the CO etc. about
1 to 2 hours later, and start contracting a few hours after that. Although
some find the diarrhea somewhat unpleasant, it's usually short-lived.

It doesn't always work, and I agree that the cervix has to be favourable
for it to work. As well, if a woman already has significant haemorrhoids,
I don't recommend that she try this, as it will aggravate them (as any
case of the runs would). Observationally, we do not notice anymore mec
in the castor oil moms than in the spontaneously labouring ones (even the
postdates ones).

This study implies that the effect of castor oil in creating diarrhea
is a relatively localized effect, and that it reduces the absorption of
fluid from the intestines. It's hard to imagine how the mom's ingesting
castor oil would cause the castor oil to show up inside the baby's intestines.
And, if it did, the baby's intestines are filled with mec, which doesn't
have a lot of fluid to be absorbed or not.